Jesu, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress.
After these Moravian hymns are a number of Charles Wesley’s, which
celebrate the joys of believers, for ‘How should not he be glad, whom
the glad tidings have reached?’[147] It is often difficult to
understand John Wesley’s principle of classification, but in this
section almost every hymn of the seventy-five is obviously well placed
under the title ‘For Believers Rejoicing.’ The notes of thanksgiving
are very varied, from the calm confidence of ‘Now I have found the
ground’ to the simple songs written for him ‘that in God is merry,’
such as
O what shall I do My Saviour to praise,
So faithful and true, So plenteous in grace,
So strong to deliver, So good to redeem
The weakest believer That hangs upon Him!
and
My God, I am Thine, What a comfort divine,
What a blessing to know That my Jesus is mine!
We cannot claim for these hymns that they introduce new songs to the
Christian choir. Joy and gladness are common to all who have found
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Isaac Watts, Philip
Doddridge, F. W. Faber, Frances Ridley Havergal, and many more have
had ‘the high praises of God in their mouth.’ From the days of the
Hebrew psalmists until now the sense of infinite content which comes
with the peace which passeth all understanding has been the theme of
God’s singers. ‘He satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry
soul with goodness.’ Yet joyousness is a special characteristic of
Methodist hymns, and especially of those which were written in the
early days of the triumphs of the itinerant preachers. No hymns rise
higher in their exultant rapture, none are more tenderly triumphant
than the songs of Charles Wesley.
His Birthday hymn exhibits the happy enthusiasm of his evangelism.
My remnant of days
I spend in His praise,
Who died the whole world to redeem;
Be they many or few,
My days are His due,
And they all are devoted to Him.
In other hymns he expresses the same joy in living in calmer tones.
The winter’s night and summer’s day
Glide imperceptibly away,
Too short to sing Thy praise;
Too few we find the happy hours,
And haste to join those heavenly powers,
In everlasting lays.
Bright and inspiring as these pieces are, they are in striking
contrast with the hymns characteristic of minor religious movements,
and justify John Wesley’s claim that ‘in these hymns is no doggerel.’
That they are of unequal merit goes without saying, but it is
remarkable how many of them are living hymns to-day. Religious feeling
is no more healthy because it loves to pray for guidance ‘amid the
encircling gloom,’ or to describe the hosts of the Church militant as
‘pilgrims of the night.’ A ‘sober standard of feeling’ must take into
account that the darkness has passed and the true light now shineth.
Yet one who knows little of early Methodism would be surprised to find
how ‘sober’ is the tone of most of the hymns provided for the people
called Methodists. They are songs in which ‘calmly reverential joy’ is
more often heard than ecstasy. It is instructive to turn from Mr.
Lecky’s chapter on ‘The Religious Revival,’ in his _History of England
in the Eighteenth Century_ to Wesley’s hymns. The uninstructed reader
of Mr. Lecky would expect to find here the turbid, involved,
hysterical expression of a morbid fanaticism, but he would search
almost in vain for illustrations of that side of the Methodist
Movement. It is true that both the Wesleys were perplexed by the
physical effects of their preaching, and were afraid to treat them as
mere manifestations of hysterical excitement. But they dealt with them
as St. Paul dealt with somewhat similar phenomena at Corinth, and
carefully avoided encouraging such painful and inconvenient
interruptions of their services. The hymn-book makes no provision for
the nervously excited, and has no compositions of the class
characteristic of many ‘revivals’—such, for instance, as are found in
Hugh Bourne’s _Hymns for Camp Meetings, Revivals, etc._ The novelty,
the directness of the preaching, and, no doubt, the lack of education
of many of the preachers naturally led to indiscretion in many places,
especially in the early days of the Revival; but it is fair to judge
the Wesleys’ own standard of religious emotion by their hymns rather
than by the extravagances of their least intelligent helpers.
Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘For the Fear of God,’ is a good example of the
attitude of soul he desired for himself and for Methodists generally.
God of all grace and majesty,
Supremely great and good!
If I have mercy[148] found with Thee,
Through the atoning blood,
The guard of all Thy mercies give,
And to my pardon join
A fear lest I should ever grieve
The gracious Spirit divine.
Rather I would in darkness mourn
The absence of Thy peace,
Than e’er by light irreverence turn
Thy grace to wantonness:
Rather I would in painful awe
Beneath Thine anger move,
Than sin against the gospel law
Of liberty and love.
But O! Thou wouldst not have me live
In bondage, grief, or pain,
Thou dost not take delight to grieve
The helpless sons of men;
Thy will is my salvation, Lord;
And let it now take place,
And let me tremble at the word
Of reconciling grace.
Still may I walk as in Thy sight,
My strict observer see;
And Thou by reverent love unite
My child-like heart to Thee;
Still let me, till my days are past,
At Jesu’s feet abide,
So shall He lift me up at last,
And seat me by His side.
Perhaps there are few hymns quite of this type, but the subdued and
subduing sense of the fear of God pervades many of Charles Wesley’s
poems. He dwells much on ‘the mystic joys of penitence,’ as in his
brief meditation on Ezek. xxxvi. 26, ‘I will give you an heart of
flesh.’
Let me, according to Thy word,
A tender, contrite heart receive,
Which grieves[149] for having grieved its Lord
And never can itself forgive;
a verse which reminds one of Cardinal Newman’s saying that true
penitence never forgives itself. This, however, is not what Charles
Wesley meant, for he of all Christian poets best understood how truly
the pardoned prodigal might make merry and be glad when he was safe in
his Father’s house once more.
Lift up Thy countenance serene,
And let Thy happy child
Behold, without a cloud between,
The Godhead reconciled.
An important series of hymns—so important that it demands separate
consideration—is that which is found in Sections vii.-ix. of the
original hymn-book. They include nearly one hundred pieces, and from
the days of John Wesley until the latest revision the section began
with a hymn which is the most fitting introduction to the series,
since it sets forth with great simplicity the Wesleyan doctrine of
Christian perfection. Familiar as this hymn is to Methodists, it is
worth while to quote it in full here—
The thing my God doth hate,
That I no more may do,
Thy creature, Lord, again create,
And all my soul renew;
My soul shall then, like Thine,
Abhor the thing unclean,
And, sanctified by love divine,
For ever cease from sin.
That blessed law of Thine,
Jesus, to me impart;
The Spirit’s law of life divine,
O write it in my heart!
Implant it deep within,
Whence it may ne’er remove,
The law of liberty from sin,
The perfect law of love.
Thy nature be my law,
Thy spotless sanctity,
And sweetly every moment draw
My happy soul to Thee.
Soul of my soul remain!
Who didst for all fulfil,
In me, O Lord, fulfil again
Thy heavenly Father’s will!
This hymn is made up, as are many others, by joining together verses
from the _Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures_. The
first verse is suggested by Jer. xliv. 4: ‘Oh, do not this abominable
thing that I hate.’ The second and third by Jer. xxxi. 33: ‘I will put
My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will
be their God, and they shall be My people.’
Another peaceful and attractive hymn on the same subject is based on
Heb. iv. 9: ‘There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.’
Charles Wesley wrote twenty-seven verses; John Wesley selected eight,
these are reduced to six in the _Methodist Hymn-book_. I am inclined
to think that a further abridgement would have been still wiser. The
four verses which follow are a beautiful meditation on the text—
Lord, I believe a rest remains
To all Thy people known,
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,
And Thou art loved alone:
A rest, where all our soul’s desire
Is fixed on things above;
Where fear, and sin, and grief expire,
Cast out by perfect love.
O that I now the rest might know,
Believe, and enter in!
Now, Saviour, now the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin.
Remove this hardness from my heart,
This unbelief remove:
To me the rest of faith impart,
The Sabbath of Thy love.
The doctrine of Entire Sanctification, as it was believed and taught
by the Wesleys, is set forth in the hymn-book with emphasis, but the
expressions are rarely open to serious objection, nearly every phrase
having Scriptural precedent. In early days Charles Wesley had often
prayed for death, believing that through its gate alone could he find
entrance into ‘the land of rest from inbred sin.’ In one of his first
hymns, published in 1739, he had written—
Fain would I leave this world below,
Of pain and sin the dark abode,
Where shadowy joy or solid woe
Allures or tears me from my God;
Doubtful and insecure of bliss,
Since death alone confirms me His.[150]
But in later years he had outgrown this mood. John Wesley wrote _No_
against the last line of the stanza, and in his hymn-book gave—
Since _faith_ alone confirms me His.
The brothers taught that sanctification was progressive, yet might be
‘cut short in righteousness,’ a phrase which they often quoted. In one
of the hymns for those that wait for ‘full redemption,’[151] Charles
Wesley writes—
Surely I have pardon found,
Grace doth more than sin abound,
God, I know, is pacified;
Thou for me, for me hast died;
But I cannot rest herein,
All my nature still is sin,
Comforted I will not be
Till my soul is all like Thee.
See my burdened, sin-sick soul,
Give me faith, and make me whole!
Finish Thy great work of grace,
Cut it short in righteousness.
Speak the second time, ‘Be clean!’
Take away my inbred sin;
Now the stumbling-block remove,
Cast it out by perfect love.
This doctrine of what has been called ‘the second blessing’ is often
met with in Charles Wesley, but he used expressions which John
disapproved, and would not repeat in his _Collection_, as in the
second verse of the great hymn, ‘Love divine, all loves excelling,’
which reads—
Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
Into every troubled breast;
Let us all in Thee inherit,
Let us find that second rest;
Take away the power of sinning,
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.
John Fletcher suggested that ‘power’ should be altered to ‘love.’
The Wesleys’ teaching concerning sanctification had an immense
influence upon Methodist life and thought. ‘The pursuit of holiness,’
to use Dean Goulburn’s phrase, was the daily interest and delight of
multitudes of devout souls. No doubt in many cases there was more or
less of morbid introspection, but the rich treasury of Methodist
biography witnesses to the saintliness of those who made the search
for ‘full redemption,’ or, as they delighted to say, ‘perfect love,’
the one serious business of life.
Important and influential as this section of Wesley’s _Hymns_ is, not
many of the best are found here.[152] The finest are John Wesley’s
translations from the German but only a few original compositions are
of marked value. Some exceptions, indeed, must be made, notably—
Love divine, all loves excelling;
and there are many verses inspired by that thirst of the soul ‘for
God, yea, even for the living God,’ which is characteristic of no one
Church or age, but of all elect souls restless till they find rest in
Him. The varying moods of the seeker after God are impressively
illustrated. Some of the hymns are of a solemn and even sombre type,
while others are bright with assurance of the favour of God and the
gladness of the redeemed. Here are a few verses from a